Invention relates to electronic sensors, particularly to distributed sensor arrays for processing mixed-mode conditions.
Conventional electronic sensors are used in various industrial and commercial applications, for example, whereby a certain transducer-type device may measure a physical condition and generate an electrical signal which represents such measured condition. Conventional sensors, however, typically generate analog signals and are not designed to interface easily to digital networks. Although more recently, electronic industry attention has increasingly turned toward coupling so-called embedded processing elements to digital networks, such recent approaches provide a limited capability in processing multi-sensor systems, particularly for digital networks.
Invention resides in a multi-sensor system and method to enable the interactive sensing of mix-signal attributes to determine an object condition. Sensors separately measure different physical attributes to generate corresponding analog signals. Then, according to a specified rule set or other qualifying parameters, a digital signal is generated by a processor or controller to represent one or more condition of the sensed object according to such sensor signals. A multi-sensor scheme may be coupled to a digital network or electronic facility for simulation and/or communication.